NYC music school seeks to change black students-only $3M scholarship over fears it will be deemed unlawful

[The Bobster]

NYC music school seeks to change black students-only $3M scholarship over fears it will be deemed unlawful

The Manhattan School of Music is sitting on nearly $3 million in scholarship funds intended for black students — because they fear the race restriction will be deemed unlawful.

nypost.com

NYC music school seeks to change black students-only $3M scholarship over fears it will be deemed unlawful​

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Published March 23, 2024, 1:04 p.m. ET

The Manhattan School of Music wants a court to give the OK before it changes the parameters of the scholarship. Alamy Stock Photo


The Manhattan School of Music wants to change the parameters on a nearly $3 million scholarship fund earmarked only for black students — because they fear the race restriction will be deemed unlawful.
The money was bequeathed to the Morningside Heights school by trustee Cate Ryan, a longtime nurse and playwright who died in 2019 at age 78.

Director Charles Weldon and writer Cate Ryan, on the opening night of “The Picture Box,” the play Ryan wrote about Marks. Aubrey Reuben

Protesters demonstrating against the Supreme Court’s. June decision striking down affirmative action at two universities. AP
Ryan, who was white, left the dough to the school in recognition of her longtime friend and childhood caretaker, Masolinar “Mackie” Marks, who was black. Ryan, who also worked for The New Yorker, wrote her 2012 play, The Picture Box, in honor of Marks.




In her will, Ryan specified the money go to “financially deserving African-American students” in the school’s precollege programs — but in recently filed Manhattan Supreme Court papers, the institution worries the race-based restriction will be found unlawful after the US Supreme Court last year struck down affirmative action programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.